Dune Buggies!

The Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area was just up the road from our campground and I was on a quest to get the family out on dune buggies. The best rental place from my internet search was called Spinreel Dune Buggies and it looked awesome. I made reservations for noon and we got there plenty ahead of our rental time. 

I'll play the spoiler and confess that this activity didn't go as I had hoped...

First off, Amaya was still on crutches, so she wouldn't be able to ride a small ATV on her own. Rachelle wasn't keen on the whole affair since she had had a bad experience with an ATV when she was a kid. I was fired up, of course, and Keiko seemed pretty exited about the whole thing when I brought it up to the family the day before. 

Things took a turn for the worse when the rental place started talking about all of the rules and regulations and then parked us in front of a "safety" video that was basically a series of home videos of people doing the most idiotic things possible on their dune buggies and either having to pay extra damage fees or getting hurt. By the end of the video, everyone was completely paranoid. I tried to explain that the company was just covering their butts and there was no reason to think that we would drive like idiots ourselves. We could follow the rules, be safe, and still have lots of fun...

Second spoiler alert: nobody got hurt, no ATVs got damaged, but it didn't seem like much fun was had—and everyone was annoyed with me by the end of the day....

Excited or Terrified?

The second turn for the worse occurred when it was time to sign all of the rental paperwork and I couldn't find my driver's license! I looked everywhere in the RV, but couldn't find it. (A few days later, Rachelle found it in the pocket of my swimsuit--leftover from the water park excursion with Neb.) That meant that Rachelle had to drive the 4-seater ATV. Keiko would follow along on her own 60 cc 4-wheeler. After getting fitted for crazy helmets and being given more caveats about extra damage charges, they showed us how to operate the equipment.  I rode in the back of the 4-seater and Amaya rode shotgun.

Rachelle: A Very Responsible Driver

Spoiler number three: Amaya spent the next hour chanting "we're gonna die!"  Super fun...

Keiko: Tearing it UP!

The dunes were steep in some places, but tapered off toward one end. Other people were zooming around on the steep parts. Boy, that looked fun! We, however, spent most of our time on the mellow side, negotiating very shallow rises. Still, the vast expanses of sand were pretty inviting. Keiko got the hang of it pretty quickly. Keiko got stuck a few times going uphill without enough momentum, but I jumped out of our dune buggy and was able to lift her machine out of the sand to free her.

I am your father, Luke...

At one point, we stopped and I took a video of Keiko. She disappeared around a little mound of grass and then didn't reappear for quite some time. Just when we were about to follow her to investigate, she ran out from behind the mound waving to us. Pretty funny. It's hard to make out clearly in the video. So far, I've had zero luck getting the video uploaded, but if I do, I'll post it here.

She had gotten stuck in the sand. We still had a few minutes left on our rental time after freeing her wheels, but Keiko's hand was cramping up from using the hand-throttle on her machine and Amaya was still freaking out. Rachelle had had enough. I reluctantly agreed to call it a day.  A disheartening defeat, but still fun overall. Man, I wish that I hadn't misplaced my license....

Rifling through my wallet at the Pie Restaurant

To add insult to injury, the next time I was looking for my sunglasses, I couldn't find them. Two weeks later, I thought to call Spinreel Dune Buggies, and sure enough, I had left my sunglasses there.  I'm such a dolt.

It was about 4:00 by the time we got back to the car, so we headed to Don's Main Street Family Restaurant & Pie Shop(!) in Reedsport for a late lunch/early dinner. By the time the pie came, the family didn't seem quite as mad at me for dragging them to a scary activity, losing my license, and then complaining that we weren't driving fast enough on the dunes.  Once we had a campfire going back at the "RV resort," and started playing Apples to Apples, Jr., most of my transgressions had been forgotten if not forgiven.

Safely back at the Winchester Bay RV Resort